The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Smart Cities: They’re NOT “Just a Crazy Conspiracy Theory” Marie Hawthorne After the fires in Maui, a local resident nicknamed Auntie  complained that Lahaina was slated  to become a “satellite city”    Residents posted on X (Twitter) that, before the fire,  rumors had been circulating  about a Digital City, or a 15-minute city, being set up on Maui    Naturally the fact-checkers are treating these people like they’re just “conspiracy theorists,” but let’s look at what the new types of cities – also called Smart Cities – really are. What are Smart Cities? “Satellite city”  just refers  to a smaller city next to a larger one.    Think Fort Worth and Dallas.  It’s possible that Auntie got her words mixed up and meant to say “Smart City” instead of satellite city.  Or, she could have meant that Lahaina was supposed to be a satellite city for something bigger that was slated to be built.   Smart Cities are a different matter entirely. (People often use “smart city” and “digital city” int

 Thanks to MrZ for recommending this article... Vacation Autopsy by John Steppling  There’s something about a mass-market Luxury Cruise that’s unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things, it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes yet simple in its effect: on board the Nadir (especially at night, when all the ship’s structured fun and reassurances and gaiety ceased) I felt despair. — David Foster Wallace,  A Supposedly Fun Thing I will Never do Again , 1997 Leop­ards break in­to the tem­ple and drink all the sac­ri­fi­cial ves­sels dry; it keeps hap­pen­ing; in the end, it can be cal­cu­lat­ed in ad­vance and is in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the rit­ual. — Franz Kafka,  The Zürau Aphorisms , 1931 This will constitute my end of summer report. Not that anyone commissioned an end of summer report, or even that there really is something called an end of summer report. But as an American in Norway, I have had to adjust (more than even in France) to this idea of an almost obligatory

    Central bank digital currencies are feverishly being developed all over the globe, and this is something that should deeply alarm all of us.  For a moment, I would like for you to imagine a world where the government instantly knows whenever you buy or sell something.  No transaction would ever be truly private, not even your most personal or embarrassing ones.  In addition, your money would not be truly your own under such a system.  Your access to the digital currency system would be a privilege which could potentially be suspended or revoked with the click of a mouse.  All of a  sudden you would not be able to buy or sell anything and you would become an outcast from society.  Under no circumstances should any government ever be given such power. Unfortunately, the CBDCs are coming, and they are going to radically change how commerce gets done. Here in the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has posted a job listing for a “Senior Crypto Architect” to work on